Gerrel Jones
A Story of Trauma, Redemption, and Mission, Part 1
I have had the honor of getting to know a man over the past couple of years. His name is Gerrel Jones. He is the kind of man Mission Alive imagines as we focus on marginalized populations. Yet, to identify him as ‘marginalized’ misses the tremendous intelligence, character, and initiative he has demonstrated in recent years. Within moments of meeting him for the first time, he introduced himself as a murderer. He shared with me that he had spent 20 years in prison for murdering a man with a knife. While I have not met many people who have murdered someone, killing with a knife is a particularly personal way to do it. It gave me pause.
The more Gerrel and I talked, the more we shared our journey with one another, the more we discovered how our hearts beat to the same rhythm. While Gerrel is not a Mission Alive church planter, he has launched what we would call an innovative faith community (IFC) in Ensley, Alabama, a community on the northwest edge of Birmingham.
I asked Gerrel to share his story with us. This is it.
Tod K. Vogt
Mission Alive
Maslow asserts that a hierarchy of needs begins with food, shelter, etc. Then he says we need safety, closely followed by love. It would seem that these are all necessary to acquire the next level, esteem. Finally, one needs to be actualized, in other words, to fulfill their potential.
What do you think happens when a whole group of people is not allowed access to safety? What happens when food and shelter are a struggle to acquire? Is there a place for love? Can esteem be built in that environment? Surely no one can be fully actualized under these circumstances. Under these circumstances, a culture of lack and survivalism develops. People become suspicious of one another and compete for resources, often seeing others as enemies. Fear becomes the driving motivation behind the community atmosphere.
And…what of their kids?
In 1992, I stabbed my great-grandmother’s husband to death. I might have gotten away with the homicide but turned myself in the next day after having what I call an encounter with God. The antipathy my great-grandmother’s husband and I had for each other spanned decades from my childhood. Among my family, he was known to be a child predator. There are many reasons why he was allowed to continue without any consequences. However, by the time I was 24, I had no room for tolerance. I could not sit still for any threats, and it didn’t matter who they came from - but there were particularly untenable coming from him.
I am not proud of what I did that night. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t say it was the beginning of a new life for me.
Welcome to The World
On Monday, May 1st, 1967, Elvis and Priscilla wed in Las Vegas. Lyndon Johnson was President and Bernard Malamud received a Pulitzer for his novel The Fixer. By the power vested in forceps, due to what must have been reluctance on my part to even enter this crazy world, I was traumatically ushered into American citizenship on that day, without the full rights as a citizen. My mama says I was a pretty baby, even with the misshapen head as a consequence of the forceps. She was only 16 years old and had no idea I shouldn’t look like that. My jaw still pops today because of the misalignment. She was just happy to have a “teammate” as someone to suffer with her.
Her parents were homeless when she delivered me. She had to live with her auntie during my earliest days. My biological father was not equipped to take care of anyone, including himself. His father had abandoned his children and there were unverified rumors of incest with his mother.
I don’t know much about my father, except that he was very popular with the ladies; popular at his job with The Birmingham Country Club, and drank himself to death at age 39. I can only remember being in his presence twice in my life. Both times, he took me to a bootlegger’s house, where illegal alcohol is sold on Sundays. While I have not learned a lot about his life and struggles, it is evident that there were problems. Otherwise, why would a 26-year-old man be interested in a 15-year-old girl from an extremely dysfunctional family whose parents are homeless?
Mama
Berneeda Jones was born the third of seven children. By her account, she didn’t find out who her father was until her mother lay dying of cancer. A deathbed confession that made sense of the feelings of disconnectedness she had experienced all her life. She knew her older siblings were “half-siblings.” She knew her youngest brother was a half-sibling as well. The revelation that she was a half-sibling to the other three was shocking; however, it gave context to the treatment she received and to some degree, still receives from her mother’s other children.
As a seven-year-old, she was raped by her uncle. As horrific as this is, it was not uncommon in Jim Crow Alabama. In many ways, the legacies of slavery and state-sanctioned oppression of Black people blurred the boundaries of morality, dignity, and self-respect for so many. My mother told me the stories of how her mother and grandmother allowed the molestation and rape of their daughters while collecting the money to pay bills. She related how her father would get paid from work, and would not make it home for being ‘rolled’ at a bootlegger’s” (i.e. got so drunk that you passed out and someone rolls you onto your face to take your wallet in your back pocket).
At first, I wondered where the outcry was. But then I realized she grew up in a time when black lives did not matter… to most people: black or white.
Today, Mama is 74 years old. She does not have any friends and chooses to live alone in Atlanta, Georgia. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to convince her to come back to Birmingham so that she would be closer to me for all the normal reasons. However, she has difficulty overcoming the desire to be away from the place of her trauma.
Next week, I will share my own journey to Fort Knox, Germany, and prison.
To learn more about Gerrel and Renew Birmingham, check out renewbham.org. Gerrel has also been interviewed a number of times.
His books are available on Amazon under the titles: